European Shares Mostly Lower In Cautious Trade

9/13/2017 5:56 AM ET

European stocks were lackluster on Wednesday as investors moved to the sidelines awaiting further clarity over North Korea and U.S. President Donald Trump's tax reform bill.

In economic releases, German consumer price inflation rose to a four-month high of 1.8 percent in August from 1.7 percent in July, final data from Destatis showed, coming in line with the preliminary estimate released on August 30.

U.K. wage growth for the three months to July missed expectations despite the jobless rate hitting a 42-year low of 4.3 percent.

The pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 index was down 0.3 percent at 380.31 in late opening deals after rising half a percent on Tuesday to extend gains for a fifth day.

The German DAX and France's CAC 40 index were little changed in choppy trade while the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was declining 0.5 percent ahead of the Bank of England's rate-decision, due on Thursday.

Austrian specialty steelmaker Voestalpine fell 1.3 percent after Germany's antitrust regulator raided its headquarters as part of an investigation into suspected violations of antitrust laws in the industry.

Swiss luxury goods group Richemont lost 1.5 percent despite the company reporting a 12 percent increase in sales at constant exchange rates for the five months ended 31 August 2017.

Eramet shares fell as much as 11 percent. Italian lenders Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. and UniCredit SpA announced that they have offloaded about 2.97 million shares in the French mining and metallurgy firm.

Chipmaker AMS lost 4 percent and Dialog Semiconductor shed 1 percent after Apple said it would not ship its new iPhone X until November.

Lens maker Essilor, which is in the process of merging with Italian peer Luxottica, dropped 1.8 percent.